| red onion |
[Jul. 15th, 2007|01:04 am] |
onion, you make me cry
ruby flesh demanding revenge
with crackling whispers
as my fingers denude you
falling in halves before
the clumsy embrace of my cleaver,
your retribution complete:
oh onion,
your center resembles
the secret kiss I give my lover
and even your sharpest grasp
cannot hold my tongue
like the taste
of her ecstasy
onion, you make me cry
but
at least you share color
with my wine |
|
|
| oh brown-eyed sun |
[Jul. 15th, 2007|01:03 am] |
oh brown-eyed sun
don't dance alone
without your gaze
all poetry
turns to bone |
|
|
| the apology |
[Jul. 15th, 2007|01:02 am] |
i do not believe
that the world
is the stain of blood
that rain
is the scream of coins
that my home
stands on stacks
of dead paper
please understand
i have to eat
like everyone else
but as i have leisure
to lament about
money and love
i apologize
for my privilege
which you may mistake
for my voice
laden with flimsy ideals
lightly simmered
in the tin cup
of spoiled youth
still
what truth i know
begs for my hands
to write hoarsely
and defiant
to slobber gobs
of messy life
onto the blank cheeks
of the undying
(all those who now
resemble death
and sell the scent of memory
for a few minutes more)
to let loose
this obsidian growl
in the ear of pale humanity:
even if you bury one thousand dreams
i will dream one thousand and one
of colors you've never seen
sowing them in the soil
of my only life
and watering them
with youth
do you see?
they will wear poetry
on their feet
their skipping,
blackredyellowbrownwhitefeet
sowing peace
where they meet the earth
and none of them
will dine on money
and none of them
will smell like hate |
|
|
| epitaph |
[Jul. 14th, 2007|02:51 am] |
in the end
when i'm almost gone
and all i've left
is a red lamp
and a ragged song
to pave my way
into the thunderstorm
let every raindrop murmur
i loved you and lost
nothing but emptiness
and the company
of ghosts |
|
|
| my feet are deep red roots |
[Jul. 13th, 2007|12:34 am] |
there is no flesh
of my crippled bed
that is not
etching your name
into my dreams
of living
on the milk of war
that slowly stains
my silk heart
hopeless
but
you are the color
of my sky
my eyelids
my mouth
and i drink the sea
because it tastes
of the question
"en ma vida
cuando usted lloverá?"
and my feet are deep red roots
longing to twine
around your calves
and i drink the sea |
|
|
| manifesto |
[May. 1st, 2007|02:37 am] |
we refuse
we will not feast
at the ivory tables
of hatred and fear
will not continue
to gorge ourselves
on the virus of your flesh
no longer respond to your commands
to remake ourselves into
narrow images of your mistakes
we reject
the iron classrooms of despair
the lessons of abhorrence
against ourselves
and the skin of others
we will throw open the doors
hiding the private tutelage
of alienation
xenophobia
and despair
we will cast off of our shoulders
the weights of ignorance
you lovingly placed
onto our minds
our emotions
our genders
our hope
we will walk away
from your killing fields
we will not fight you with your weapons
but will use them to build
monuments to the rusting
of your machine
|
|
|
| ESSAY :| |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|05:35 am] |
“...Chinese American men are guilty by race-association and the construction of a Chinese American male identity is inevitably bound by refuting, denying, or rejecting these stereotypes.”(Chan, 8)
“...images of Asians, in order to be accepted by mainstream American audiences, need to fall into specific stereotypes, such as the evil dictator of the East, the model minority of Hawaii, or the “super men” of martial arts. These images represent what mainstream white American cultural producers find acceptable in terms of Asian images in popular media.”(Chan, 119)
In the ongoing discussions of gender and race that have surfaced in the past decades, these complex issues have often been regarded as separate entities. However, this reductive separation of fundamentally linked concepts has only obscured viable types of discourse that take a more heterogeneous approach, to the detriment of my generation. My immersion in academic and literary examples of contemporary Chinese American concepts of masculinity has asserted an undeniable correlation between masculinity, race, and nationalism with roots in the Chinese diaspora of the mid 19th and early 20th century. The social context that Chinese American immigrants were forced into has formed an enduring basis for cultural stereotypes subservient to hegemonic Western patriarchal structures that continue to endure in American culture to this day.
Part One: Understanding Chinese Men Within Western Patriarchy
“Hegemonic masculinity refers to ‘the cultural dynamic by which group claims and sustains a leading position in social life...Hegemonic masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the domination of men and the subordination of women.’”
(Connell, 77)
Connell’s definition of hegemonic masculinity is an excellent model with which to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of patriarchy and its integral attachment to homophobia, sexism, and racism. According to Connell, patriarchal ideology is formed by four types, or perspectives, of masculinity: the dominant hegemonic masculinity, subordinated masculinity, complicit masculinity, and marginalized masculinity (Connell, Masculinities). The hegemonic masculinity, composed of a disproportionately small community of men, controls the culture it exists in by systematically subordinating the other three types of masculinity in order to maintain its position of power within the institution. Note that the process of rejection and subordination of the other types of masculinity maintains the homogenous identity of the dominant group, allowing the group to easily recognize and eject any unwanted deviations within it. Each of the three disenfranchised alternative masculinities is directly applicable to the popular face of Chinese American men.
“The West thinks of itself as masculine – big guns, big industry, big money – so the East is feminine – weak, delicate, poor...but good at art, and full of inscrutable wisdom – the feminine mystique. Her mouth says no, but her eyes say yes. The West believes that the East, deep down, wants to be dominated – because a woman can’t think for herself.”(Hwang, 83)
With hegemonic masculinity as the dominating form, subordinated masculinity encompasses the subordinated role of homosexual men to straight men, as they are “the repository of whatever is symbolically expelled from hegemonic masculinity,” from “fastidious taste in home decoration to receptive anal pleasure.”(Connell, 78) Thus the continued domination and rejection of these types of behavior is essential to the continued perception of hegemonic masculinity as “normal”. As illustrated in the previous passage from David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, Western hegemonic masculinity must establish the Chinese as a subordinated race and culture in order to continue justifying Western patriarchal power. Even naturalized Chinese citizens are subject to this subversion, including men who have successfully achieved absolute assimilation and abandonment of their historical culture. Of the multiple levels that the patriarchal ideology uses to judge masculinity, physical appearance is the easiest to identify. This includes height, body type, facial hair, and eye shape. In all of these, the stereotypical short, slender, hairless Chinaman with effeminate almond-shaped eyes falls far short of the American masculine ideal.
Complicit masculinity, Connell’s third type of masculinity, arises from the incidental benefits that fall on men who do not belong to the dominant hegemonic group. While they do not belong to the upper echelon of power, they still benefit from the rejection of femininity and the subversion of women and homosexual men. This type of masculinity is especially sinister, fooling Chinese American men into supporting an illusory “egalitarian” brotherhood of men, devoid of the nuances of race and culture. This creates a mental model of masculinity that unevenly trades ones awareness of inequalities stemming from racist institutional policies biased against both genders for a tenuous, crude dominance over women. Men of color in a complicit mode of masculinity may attempt to exert control over white females, and their results may reinforce their belief in hegemonic masculine dominance over women. However, this is again illusory because white females, despite being confined to the role of feminine subordination, are still at an advantage, existing in an institution that defines white females as the property of the patriarchal elite, property that is protected by the racist systems that compose the hegemonic state. Ultimately, men of color engaged in complicit masculinity fail to see that the only dominion they have is over women of color who have little to no power whatsoever.
The fourth type of masculinity springs directly from the effects of complicit masculinity on men of color. Because of the fallacious benefits of complicit masculinity, men of color can be deceived into the belief that through assimilation and aggressive adherence to hegemonic masculinity they can become a part of the dominant patriarchal group. However, due to the reductive effects of complicit masculinity, the knowledge that Western patriarchy is built upon “the masculinity that defines white, middle class, early middle-aged, heterosexual men [as] the masculinity that sets the standards for other men, against which other men are measured, and more often than not, found wanting,” (Kimmel, 124) goes unseen. The idea that the paradigm for “MAN” in America is unequivocally tied to race, social status, age, and sexual orientation often seems lost on a collection of men who are socially and culturally marginalized from the dominant group because of their inability to change their skin color, height, or economic and social status. Thus, marginalized masculinity comprises the fourth type of masculinity in American patriarchy, composed of men of color who are unable to attain acceptance to the dominant hegemonic group because they can never satisfy the most basic requirement: Be White.
However, the aggressive attempts by marginalized masculine individuals to prove their adherence to hegemonic masculinity will often push them into situations that threaten the patriarchal status quo. Bruce Lee was a prime example of this, proving that Chinese Americans could attain and display a body, skills, and a mien that went beyond the capabilities of the dominant White males and brought him box-office success. When a situation like this occurs, the hegemonic masculinity immediately undergoes a process of “remasculinization.” (Jeffords) This is “a regeneration of the concepts, constructions, and definitions of masculinity in American culture and a restabilization of the gender system within and for which it is formulated.”(Jeffords, 51) In the case of Bruce Lee, the hegemonic masculinity co-opted his success, even as he redefined the boundaries of Chinese American masculinity and economic opportunity, thereby minimizing his accomplishments and reconstructing the hegemonic model to marginalize Chinese men by taking away their ability to play roles other than “kung fu master”. This process of remasculinization is self-perpetuating and self-intensifying: successful efforts at hypermasculinization by marginalized men lead to a remasculinization in the patriarchal elite, which are followed by more attempts to break into the dominant group by marginalized men, etc. etc. etc.
Considering these four types of masculinity and the way that race and culture converge to define an identity, it is obvious that there is now a need to confront older, dated ways of classifying gender. Reductionist attempts to boil gender down to two sexes that are utterly biological and deterministic in nature cannot explain the complexity with which American patriarchy sustains itself, nor can they excuse the unwavering focus on domination and submission that patriarchy defines itself with. By considering the importance of hegemonic masculinity’s constant remasculinization, the continual classification and rejection of what is feminine, and the constant insistence on a homogenous patriarchal ideal, a viable alternative to the previous, rigid classifications of gender by apparatus emerges. Because current masculine ideals seem to be integrally tied to race, class, and appearance, masculine gender identity seems to be negotiated as a performance, informed by a man’s relation to the four masculinities. This perspective on masculinity denies the deterministic and racist view that justifies patriarchy, the view which claims that masculinity and femininity are set in White American stone and any deviation thereof is unnatural.
“While defining patriarchy as a social system that oppresses women, it is important to acknowledge that men are also oppressed by the same patriarchal structure. Asian American men and other men of color, for instance, have been denied access to a White American patriarchy and are forced to prove their manhood against a standard that constantly defines or redefines itself in negation to men of color.”(Chan, 11)
In order to avoid conflating Western and American hegemonic masculinity with patriarchy, it is important to remember that China also has a long history of patriarchy embedded in its own form of hegemonic masculinity. One must only look to the practices of foot-binding, the exclusion of women from the civil service exams that lead to positions in the imperial bureaucracy, and the perpetual and unforgivable obsession for male children. It would be extremely unfortunate if Chinese American men were to reject one type of hegemonic masculinity for another equally subversive one. I believe the best answer to this dilemma is to directly combat the reductive reasoning that constantly represents masculinity as interchangeable with patriarchy. By separating the two, a masculist discourse can occur which can explore constructive modes of masculinity without the assumption that the domineering social structure of patriarchy will be the inherent end result. Then, with continued scrutiny, the inescapable and unnatural discrimination of hegemonic masculinity should become more apparent, and hopefully lead to a Chinese American rejection of marginalized masculinity and the creation of more nuanced conceptions of what it means to be a man. |
|
|
| Is This What Cantonese Sounds Like?(promo) |
[Mar. 3rd, 2007|01:26 am] |
“I have no idea what they’re saying.”
“Aren’t you Chinese? Isn’t it all the same?”
“They’re Cantonese.”
“What are you?”
I am speaking in tongues as I writhe on the carpeted floor of the New Life Pentecostal Church. While my body is doing its best to contort itself into an acceptable shape of worship, my tongue twists itself into knots, expounding all my secrets to the plywood pulpit, perched at the edge of the church’s cheap stage like a fat C on the report cards I don’t show my mother. While one quarter of my brain is deliriously abandoning itself to berserk tremblings, the rest is calmly observing my theatrics in the corner. Am I convincing these earnest soul-savers that I have found my secret tongue that only God understands? Will they ever know that the monosyllabic fury that streams from my mouth is the legacy of my alienation from my own people, not the brilliance of my soul? |
|
|
| stage one of song writing |
[Feb. 16th, 2007|02:57 am] |
i'm a ship named anchor
and i am setting sail
there are none who can stop me
but the thunder and the sea |
|
|
| hahahahaha |
[Feb. 15th, 2007|11:37 am] |
www.liverjournal.com
hahahahahahaha |
|
|
| thanks LJ |
[Feb. 14th, 2007|12:22 am] |
fuck this froofy bullshit banner.
seriously. |
|
|
| a new song |
[Feb. 11th, 2007|03:16 am] |
it's called "a ship named anchor"
weeeeeeeee. |
|
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| drugged out |
[Feb. 9th, 2007|11:02 am] |
i'm on the line
i'm on the line
once i clean my mirror
i'm a be feeling fine
trying to get there is
all that's on my mind
when i'm on the line
even though i run my race
with a smile on my face
it ain't easy, naw it ain't
feels like the life of the party
but it's all in your mind
on the line
i'm on the line
i'm on the line
once i clean my mirror
i'ma be feeling fine
even when you're falling
just pretend you're flying
when ya on the line
i'm with everybody but i'm still alone
just look down, that's my
line your standing on
let's keep it friendly and we'll be just fine
but don't cross that line |
|
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| oxycuted |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|02:27 am] |
|
why did that raccoon run under my wheel while i was driving high? |
|
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| the hate issue |
[Feb. 7th, 2007|07:55 am] |
1. never get into an argument with someone with a major in philosophy and a minor in physics. they will try to convince you that it's not okay to dislike people because of electron fields or something.
2. my list of people i hate in this town has not grown any larger lately, but it has intensified.
3. i like having enemies who don't know they're my enemies.
4. this is stupid. |
|
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| dagnabbit |
[Feb. 6th, 2007|11:01 pm] |
|
they're always all taken. |
|
|
| oof |
[Feb. 5th, 2007|03:23 am] |
there are two kinds of artists in the world.
some artists create art because they are compelled to.
some artists create art because they love attention.
where the two are separate, peace. where the two meet, strife. |
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|
| cast iron |
[Feb. 2nd, 2007|12:54 pm] |
so far today, i have woken up, tried to write a poem, failed, taken a shower, and cooked seared yuan salmon over braised belgian endives.
the recipes i used are as follows:
Braised Belgian Endive
Ingredients:
8 md Heads Belgian endive(a few days old, which is distinctly unrecommended, plz cook frsh :|)
3 tb Unsalted butter
2 tb Flavorless cooking oil
1/2 c Low-sodium chicken broth
OR Water(OR Organic No-Chicken Broth because i'm a goon who buys such things)
1/2 ts Salt
Instructions:
1. Cut each endive in half lengthwise and set aside.
2. Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet(made of cast-iron) over medium heat on the stove.
3. Add the endive in one layer and cook until the outer leaves are nicely browned, about 7 minutes.
4. Turn endives and brown the other side, about 4 minutes. (Do this in two batches, if necessary or do what i did and force the issue)
5. Add the broth, sprinkle with salt and cook until the liquid is reduced, about 10 minutes.
6. Transfer the endive and its juices to a serving platter. Serve immediately(which i didn't do, but instead let it sit in the microwave while it awaited invasion by large slabs of salmon).
Seared Yuan Salmon(Sake no Yuan-Yaki)
Ingredients:
4 pieces of salmon fillet with skin (about 1 2/3 lbs, although I was missing that last 1/3 of a pound)
sea salt
9 ounces of okra(or endives, they're the same thing, really)
vegetable oil
For the yuan sauce:
5 tablespoons of mirin
3 tablespoons of shoya(or organic tamari :P)
2 tablespoons of sake(and a large cup for the chef)
juice of 1/2 lime(which I forgot)
To serve:
1/2 lime, thinly sliced(which I also forgot)
Instructions:
1. Pat the pieces of salmon dry with paper towels, then sprinkle each with a pinch of salt.
2. Make the yuan sauce in a shallow dish by mixing together the mirin, shoyu, sake, and lime juice. Lay the pieces of salmon in the dish, skin side up, and leave to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
3. Cook the okra blah blah blah blah i didn't use okra blah blah blah blah.
4. Heate a friying pan or a ridged cast-iron grill pan with a little oil. Put the salmon fillets in the pan, skin side up, and cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown, then turn the salmon pieces and sear the other side(which i didn't do, actually. after searing the meat side, i promptly upended the dish of yuan sauce into the pan and let it reduce into a bubbling, tarry mess, and THEN i flipped the salmon. this made the salmon less delicately seasoned and into a roaring japanese mouth fiesta).
5. Arrange a seared piece of salmon on each of 4 individual plates(or one huge plate like i did), garnish with the lime slices(d'oh!) and cooked okra(endives), and serve immediately(to yourself).
FINIS
thoughts on cooking with a cast-iron pan: i like cast-iron far better than i like cooking with stainless steel or anything coated in teflon or xanax or what have you. i like how cast-iron takes parts of whatever is cooked in it and never lets go. i like how a cast-iron pan seems to make everything around it its dark color. i like how food cooked in cast-iron takes on the life of everything else that's been made in the same vessel. i like the heaviness of the metal and how it conducts heat back into my hand, as if it's reminding me that if i'm not careful, i could be cooked along with my meal. |
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| mi hermano |
[Jan. 31st, 2007|07:25 am] |
|
estoy digno de más que mi dinero. |
|
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| the christmas poem |
[Dec. 22nd, 2006|01:02 pm] |
christmas and
the tree calls to me again
when i was young,
i thought we’d been friends
now i’m older
i see its jealous green
now i’m older
need a new way to be free
driving fast
til the sun falls down
i tried to find
new colors in this town
now i’m listless
like the weakest grey
tell me why
i praise any day
here at home
the cold has set in
i see my breath
before day begins
now i’m colder
than the darkest blue
no warmth this year
without you |
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